


bittersweet

by memeticallyengineered



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, and also therapy, brainwashing via candy sure as hell aint friendship, ruruka has... trust issues, those 3 deserve so much better by god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27829441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memeticallyengineered/pseuds/memeticallyengineered
Summary: A story of what could have been, and what was not.
Relationships: Andoh Ruruka & Kimura Seiko, Andoh Ruruka/Izayoi Sohnosuke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. sweet

Ruruka Ando looks at the metal bracelet clasped to her wrist and wonders where it all went wrong.  
Maybe it was the moment she entered Hope’s Peak Academy, her new talent of Ultimate Confectioner on her like a label, letting the world know that the only thing that she was worth was her sweets?  
Or was it when she got into her first of many fights with Seiko, heated words lingering in the air between them, or one of many other smaller events.  
Perhaps the accident that drove a rift in their friendship was one of many small coincidences that lead to a breaking point, that drove her to become someone both admired and feared.  
The Ultimate Confectioner: loved for her sweets but bereft of love… almost.

She looks at Sonosuke, fiddling with the same sort of metal bangle. A thick metal bracelet, like a prison shackle, equipped with poison.  
An NG code, which if it was broken, would cause a quick and painful death.  
Ruruka wasn’t ready to die just yet.  
She didn’t want Sonosuke to die either, her beloved Yoi-chan. She didn’t want to be left alone, not again.  
But betrayal was inevitable. Her friendship with Seiko told her that much. Adapt, or die. Be loved for something or for nothing at all, she says, as she reaches for the macarons in her coat pocket.  
And by God, she will be loved for something.  
She wasn’t ready to be alone just yet.


	2. sour

Seiko Kimura looks at the metal bracelet clasped to her wrist and wonders what she did to deserve this.  
Was it the mix-up between drugs that tore her friendships apart?  
The countless mistakes that lead up to this very moment?  
Her medicine prevented her from receiving Ruruka’s sweets, the one thing that Ruruka was proud of.  
When she declined, it put a wrench in their friendship that Seiko thinks may have doomed it to fail from the beginning.  
She thinks about how the entire misunderstanding could have been fixed if Ruruka would have simply listened and learned to put a value on something other than her work.  
Seiko thinks that Ruruka is just fine the way she is, with or without sweets.  
But in the chilling silence, as Monokuma announced the rules of the Final Killing Game, she couldn’t bring herself to say a word.  
Just as she always had been, she was quiet.  
But she promised herself she would speak up someday, to show everyone that their worth was far more than their talent or what society thought is useful.  
What she did not know, however, is that Ruruka and Sonosuke would never be able to hear those words.


	3. spicy

The relationship between the two had always been strained since the accident that lead to the trio’s expulsion, but in the situation of a killing game, the rivalry only intensified.  
Their shouting echoed across the room, Seiko’s cries to defend herself ringing over Ruruka’s accusations of treachery. Two former best friends brought to blows, and learning that Seiko had been the one to create the toxin stored in the bangles around their wrists only added fuel to the fire.  
Tensions flared, egos clashed, and it ended in the two storming out of the room in a huff, Sonosuke with Ruruka.  
The traits that brought them together as friends, now dividing them.  
In a killing game, even the deepest of bonds is as fragile as the shells of the macarons Ruruka carries in her pocket.  
And the strongest of friendships can be broken as easily as a syringe casing.  
Seiko grips the vial of strength enhancers in her hand.  
If things continue the way they are, perhaps Sonosuke’s knife will be at her neck.  
And Ruruka’s faithful lapdog never missed.


	4. salty

Seiko Kimura looks at Ruruka’s bloodstained body and wonders where everything would have ended up if things had never gone bad.  
Blood drips out of her mouth, staining the white fur on her cuffs to a deep crimson.  
The candies Ruruka always loved so much were shoved in her mouth. A slow and painful death by choking, killed by the one thing she was valued for.  
Sonosuke was already gone, dead by Ruruka’s own hands. In the end, her fear of betrayal got the best of her. The woman that was so worried about being alone spoiled her own chances like milk, shoving a sweet into her beloved’s mouth.  
Both of the people Seiko cared about the most, gone within a few hours. She would never be able to speak to them again.  
Seiko cried and mourned. She would live on for both of them, so their memories would not be in vain.  
She would still remember both of them and their friendship. The memories would just be tinged with sadness and joy, just like a hard candy gone stale: poignant and bittersweet.


End file.
